Banned From SAIC

10.25.2002

In the continuing story of those darned r/c planes....

Steve went out to fly his plane yesterday. They were picking the cotton out of the cotton field, so he went to the soccer field between the Open Bio and SAIC buildings, where we first started flying. After a few minutes, Steve was greeted by the facilities manager of the SAIC building. From there, Steve was told that he was not allowed to fly his plane over SAIC property, and since the soccer field was maintained by SAIC, itws considered their property. It was fine for Steve to fly his plane somewhere else (say, the cotton field) but it wasn't to fly over the SAIC building, and if it were to land (or crash) on SAIC property, Steve would have to go into the building and sign in as a visitor before he could retrieve his plane (even if he passed the plane on the way to signing in).

It was one of those odd occasions that Steve was dumbfounded and at a lost for words. Instead of arguing with the guy, Steve just nodded, packed up his plane, and vaated the soccer field.

The irony is that a group of SAIC employees were watching us fly Wednesday, and now seem to be on the verge of joining our flying frenzy. I wonder if they could fly over their building?

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Tree - 3 , Me - 1

10.24.2002

After the bucket truck tree rescue yesterday, I waited a whole 4 hours before trying to fly again. Hopefully learning a lesson, I decided to fly over the vast cotton field adjacent to the building. The plane went up, I found I had no right turn capability, and the wind was pushing the plane toward the tree line (this way I could hit the trees from the other side). Saying a prayer and an expletive, I cut power and waited to see what would happen.

Of course, the plane landed in a tree. Luckily, it was only 6 feet up, so it was easily retrievable.

After that, I got far away from the tree line as I tried to tweak the plane to where it would turn right. It would eventually turn right, but it would be a long, lazy right. With the wind, it wasn't a good day to be tweaking. Luckily, I decided to stop before making it into any trees for a fourth time.

But there's always later today....

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Pretty Fly White Guys

10.23.2002

Yesterday I was on my way home when in front of me at a red light was an old Honda with 3 guys in it. Odds are they were somewhere in the 16-19 range, and they made me laugh.

The driver had on a football jersey featuring the number of his favorite Tennessee Titans player. In the back was the nerdy guy, complete with button down shirt. The guy in the passenger seat I could only see the outline of.

But they were all bobbing their heads to the bass coming from the stereo.

Except none of them were bobbing to the same rhythm.

It was like every black comedians favorite joke come to life. The kids had rhythm, they just weren't sharing it with one another.

I beleive it was Gloria Estafan who once said "The rhythm is gonna get you". I guess they weren't listening to Gloria.

Plane Update: After retreiving the plane, I thought I would try flying it again yesterday. After about 20 minutes, I flew it into a tree again. The good part (ok, I'm stretching here) is that I at least flew into a completely different tree. I know better than to fly into the same tree! Bob managed to fly into the tree I flew into the last time.

Plane Update II: 9:30AM. Thanks to 2 guys in a bucket truck from SAIC, the plane is once again free and ready to be flown into another tree.

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Kazaa Guru

10.22.2002

About a month ago I finally bit the bullet and downloaded Kazaa, A file sharing utility that may or may not be ripe with spyware. Since the demise of Napster, I just haven't gotten any good music, so I thought I would see how good it was.

Basically, you can find almost anything you want.

Jer soon downloaded the lite version, and we both noticed that there is a "user rating" which neither of us really knew what it alluded to. It seemed to be "Low" with a random number in parenthesis. This is probably documented somewhere, but who cares enough to look?

After a weekend of downloading files, I noticed my rating had gone from Low(18) to Guru(212). It also seemed that a lot of people were downloading the files from me that I had downloaded - sounds like an old shampoo commercial. I did a couple more searches, downloaded some more files, and before long noticed that I was no longer a Guru(212), but not a High(199). So it seems the ranking is the number of files uploaded minus the number of files downloaded? It kind of makes sense. I remember a couple of file sharing websites where you had to upload X number of files before you could download 1.

But the thing I still wonder about is whether or not anyone cares what their Kazaa rating is?

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Bird Crap!

10.21.2002

Whenever I get home, I always roll down the driver's side window while pulling into and parking in the garage. I've done it ever since I bought the house. It helps to keep the car (or truck) from getting that stuffy, musty smell.

Yesterday, Gina was going over for our weekly lunch excursion, so I went ahead and opened the garage door tomake it easier for her to get in. When she got there, she asked "Did you see your little birdie?" Evidently, a bird was seeking the solace of my garage. Oh well, I can be a bird sanctuary.

We got in the truck to go to lunch, and what did I see on the steering wheel? A bird turd. Follwing by another on the steering column. No big deal, easy enough to clean off. Except then Gina looked in the backseat and saw the bird had been there too (Luckily, not for too long, for there was only one little present).

Now I hate birds. Away, damned birds, away!

Plane Update: Sometime over the weekend, the plane made a valiant attempt to free itself from the clutches of the evil tree. It was successful, but not without a price. It now has to undergo a tailfin-ectomy (not bad, since tail fins are only $10).

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